


salt air

by surrenderer



Series: kylux summer fest 2020 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Beaches, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drabble, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Honeymoon, Kylux Summer Fest, M/M, Soft Kylux, benarmie more than kylux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer
Summary: The scent of the air is the first thing that Armitage is aware of as he wakes up—salt on the breeze as it blows in from the shoreline.Ben and Armitage, on their honeymoon.For Kylux Summer Fest 2020!
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: kylux summer fest 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873003
Comments: 38
Kudos: 176
Collections: Kylux Is Dead: Long Live Kylux, Kylux Summer Fest 2020





	1. never needed anything more

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/gifts).



> Another ficlet for the [Summer Fest XOXO board!](https://twitter.com/KyluxXoxo/status/1285256529113952258) I used the prompts _break down, heat, underwear_ this time, except it's the opposite of each of those prompts in some way, shape, or form.
> 
> Originally posted as [a twitfic](https://twitter.com/parttimewonders/status/1292625364326346754).

The scent of the air is the first thing that Armitage is aware of as he wakes up—salt on the breeze as it blows in from the shoreline.

The gently swaying motion of the hammock is the next thing—the breeze isn’t strong enough to actually rock them back and forth, but when Armitage shifts slightly to get more comfortable, it adds to the motion.

But it’s okay, he’s not worried; they’d tested the hammock for stability and how heavy of a load could it carry before Ben clambered into it with every blanket and quilt they could find in the house. The poles had creaked worryingly for a few minutes when Armitage climbed in there too, and they’d both held their breaths and thought the whole set-up would come crashing down on them. 

But once they stopped moving around as much, the hammock, like them, settled down, and Armitage was free to drape himself over Ben and tuck his face into the curve of his neck and fall asleep. Not that he’d meant to nap out here in the first place, but it’s so quiet and peaceful, with the sounds of the waves crashing onto the rocks muffled by the sand dunes and the occasional seagull cry overheard. There’s no one out here besides them in their rickety beach house; the other houses around them are unoccupied despite the summer season.

Armitage tries to keep his eyes shut as he gropes around for the edge of the blanket—despite Ben’s arms tight around him and the heaps of scratchy wool and flannel tangled around their legs, he’s still chilly. This is what he gets for dozing off out here in nothing but a threadbare t-shirt that was probably once Ben’s and satin shorts wholly unsuited for the weather or the scenery.

Actually, this is what they get for not choosing to go somewhere warmer for their honeymoon, but Ben had insisted. “You hate the sun,” he’d said, kissing the top of Armitage’s head as they looked up vacation destinations one night—all the usual honeymoon locations seemed unappealing. Too many people, too much humidity. “And I’d like somewhere quieter anyway… just you and me for a few days, no one else around for miles. You know the wedding’s going to be a goddamn nightmare, between your parents and mine.”

So now here they are, spending their honeymoon in a place where it’s been overcast almost the whole time they’ve been here, where the marine layer rolls in every night and the surfers come out in the morning in full wetsuits, and Armitage finds himself wearing sweaters whenever Ben wants to walk along the coastline.

He eventually does have to open his eyes, but it means he can see Ben’s sleeping face next to his. He brushes his finger lightly down the bridge of his nose and it makes Ben furrow his brow, but he stays asleep and so Armitage settles down too, tugging the blankets up around them and closing his eyes again so he can doze off to the sounds of the waves and Ben’s gentle snoring.

Was Ben right about the wedding in the end? He was, and both of them entertained more than one daydream about running off to elope. But would Armitage do it all over again, if it means he can end up here, in this hammock with Ben and their matching wedding bands? 

He absolutely would.


	2. a moment in time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t intend to write a second chapter, but I’m so soft for these two on their chilly beachside honeymoon and the [Long Live Kylux event](https://twitter.com/hashtag/LongLiveKylux?src=hashtag_click) gave me the perfect excuse to write more of them. 
> 
> Ben’s rock-collecting habit comes from [kelp & salt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125756), which is a lovely ficlet [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck) wrote in this same universe that I haven’t stopped crying over in weeks.
> 
> All titles in this fic are from [august](https://open.spotify.com/track/3hUxzQpSfdDqwM3ZTFQY0K?si=FKwfx2JdQJqLGWbYAJzRmg) by Taylor Swift.

“You ever think about where we go after all this?” Ben asks in his ear, arms loose around Armitage’s waist as they watch the waves crash up onto the sand. “Like past lives, or future lives, or whatever you want to call it.”

They’re not close enough to get wet and it’s too cold to swim, but Armitage feels nothing but warmth from where his back is pressed up against Ben’s chest as he sits between his legs. He almost scoffs, but doesn’t—at least, not out loud—because they’re newlyweds and he wants to keep the glow going as long as possible. He loves Ben, it’s obvious he does, but they’ve also been known to get into raging arguments over the most minor things, or nothing at all. He wants to keep the peace as long as possible.

“What, like reincarnation? It’s not actually a thing,” he points out, despite all his best efforts at reining in his dry sarcasm, and is rewarded with Ben’s quiet huff of laughter and the curve of a smile against his hair.

“How would you know? You’re not supposed to _remember_.” But Ben holds him tighter anyway and pulls the wool blanket up over their legs. “I like to think I’d be able to find you anywhere, even if we didn’t know each other, though. It’s supposed to be romantic. You’re the one for me in every lifetime, you’re my soulmate, all that stuff.”

Armitage groans, although he decides that leaning back and snuggling further into Ben’s chest is a more productive use of his time than trying to pull away. He doesn’t even know how they got onto this topic. “It’s nonsense,” he grumbles, even as he relaxes in Ben’s arms. Has Ben been watching too many Hallmark Channel movies after he’s gone to bed? Reading too many romance novels? “Next thing I know, you’ll tell me that you’re saving all those rocks because they hold the secret to your past life.”

They already have a bag full of them in their little beachside cottage: rocks in all sorts of odd shapes and colors, shiny sea-buffeted ones that Ben presented to him with all the enthusiasm of a small child, and ones so plain that Armitage honestly cannot understand why Ben’s keeping them, because they could easily find the same rock anywhere else.

He feels Ben’s chuckle, a soft vibration against his back even through the sweaters they’re both wearing. “Who says they don’t?”

Armitage rolls his eyes, but turns his head to kiss him anyway. Ben’s lips are dry from the wind and salt in the air, but he doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would. “Fine. Then what do the rocks tell you? Do they talk to you when you’re sleeping?”

Ben’s always been the one to believe in mystical nonsense like this. Astrology, crystal healing, the works. And now, reincarnation as well, apparently. But Armitage will indulge him, as he usually does, because it brings a smile to Ben’s solemn face most of the time and he can’t help it if he wants to make his husband smile while they’re on their honeymoon.

“Hmm,” Ben says thoughtfully, and then buys himself time by kissing Armitage again. He knows the trick well, but he can’t help but give in to it anyway when he tastes the salt on Ben’s lips once more. Their marriage has made him soft, he’s thought too often this week, but then he sees the glint of the silver wedding band on Ben’s left finger and he’s helpless to do anything but kiss his new husband again and again.

“I know you and I were together,” Ben says when they finally manage to pull away from each other, hooking his chin over Armitage’s shoulder and nudging his nose against his cheek. His large hands are chilly as they slide under his sweater and the shirt he wears underneath, but Armitage finds that he likes the skin-to-skin contact more than anything. “Doesn’t matter what kind of life it was. We could be here, or we could be up in space, or anywhere else in the world, but we were together. There’s no way we weren’t. I saw you for the first time and I just _knew_.”

Armitage did too. He rarely admits it, but on his honeymoon seems as good a place to start being sappy as any. “I thought so too,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to the nearest part of Ben he can reach, which happens to be his temple. “When I saw you that first time… I didn’t know who you were yet, but I didn’t want to let you out of my sight.”

He’d chalked it up to pure lust at the time, nothing but hot desire for Ben’s body even with his detestable and irritating personality, but even after their eventual first date, their first time in bed together, the first time he’d woken up to Ben drooling on his pillow when he finally stayed the night, the sparks didn’t fade and neither did the longing, the inexorable pull to this man that he was helpless to fight.

Ben’s silent for a moment, but then Armitage feels him smile against his shoulder. “You hated me at first. Couldn’t stand the sight of me, I thought.”

“We’re not talking about that,” Armitage says firmly, even if he can’t help but smile himself. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot, all those years ago, but now he has Ben’s strong arms around him as they sit on this picnic blanket on a deserted stretch of foggy beach with matching wedding bands. Whatever he’s done in some imagined past life, it couldn’t have been awful, if he can have this. If he can have Ben love him enough to promise him forever. “We made it here in the end, didn’t we?”

Ben laughs again, presses a kiss to his shoulder in agreement, and Armitage tips his head back a little so Ben can kiss his lips next. “Yeah. Yeah, we did.”


	3. it's nice to have a friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Armitage make a new friend on their honeymoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter (this whole fic) is dedicated to [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck), who has really had a Week of it (haven't we all?). This is nothing but fluff, based on a headcanon we talked about ages ago.

It’s foggy and overcast outside, just like it has been every day for the past five, and it looks like it could even rain. But as Ben and Armitage leave the warmth of the small café, hand-in-hand, Ben pulls him in the opposite direction of their little cottage facing the coast, and further down the main road. There aren’t many people out and about, everyone either indoors at a restaurant or shop, or at home to stay out of the cold.

“We haven’t been inside the gift shop yet,” Ben explains as they walk. It’s true, they haven’t, nor have they spent much time in town in general—all their waking hours have been spent tangled up in each other or down near the rocky shore, but the promise of warm meals, and more importantly, hot drinks, lured them into civilization today after a long walk along the shoreline. Armitage could still taste the salt from the ocean spray and from Ben’s mouth until that first sip of tea.

“We don’t need anything,” he protests, but only half-heartedly as Ben leads him inside. The bell above the door announces their arrival—not that there’s anyone inside besides the shopkeeper. It’s a strange cross of bookstore, toy shop, and beachside souvenir store. Unsurprisingly, Ben is drawn immediately to the displays of knick-knacks and shiny rocks and polished sea shells, so Armitage wanders over to the bookshelves to pass the time.

The books are lined up on the shelves in what seems like no particular order, so Armitage entertains himself by trying to count how many murder mystery novels there are among the light-hearted beach reads. He does find a field guide to local tide pool animals, though, and pulls that off the shelf. They’ll enjoy trying to match up the pictures in the book to what they see on their long walks on the beach, like the clichéd married couple they are now.

By the time Armitage is done picking out the hidden gems on the bookshelves, Ben has picked out what looks like yet another crystal to add to his growing collection and is migrating towards the back of the store, where there’s an alcove of children’s toys.

“We should get Millie something,” Ben says, gesturing at all the small soft toys stacked on top of each other in little baskets. No wonder their cat is the most spoiled cat in existence, Armitage thinks, but he can’t begrudge her, or Ben, that. Not when Ben loves Millicent as much as Armitage loves him. He and Ben got off to a rocky start, but he knew he was falling in love the day he saw Ben carrying his new orange kitten around in the apartment in his arms. She’d loved him from the start too, and Armitage would reason with himself that it would break her little heart if he and Ben broke up.

“As long as she can’t rip off an eye and swallow it again,” he says, though, because none of the toys on the shelves look like they would stand up to Millicent’s version of “playing.” It usually involves far too much shredded cloth and toy stuffing and torn-apart catnip mice all over their floors.

They both scan the shelves and dig through the baskets for something small and cat-appropriate, and then Armitage spots it. Well, to be fair, Ben spots it first, and pulls it into his arms triumphantly.

“No,” Armitage says, as sternly as he can, because the giant salamander that Ben holds now probably won’t even fit in their suitcases. “No, Ben, how are we going to bring that thing home? It’s too big to fit.”

“We’ll find a way. We always do,” Ben says, with a smirk—Armitage is just grateful that he doesn’t make a blatant dick joke in this small store, where the shopkeeper will definitely overhear anything they say. He has no interest in getting kicked out of here because of his husband’s lewd comments. “Come on, wouldn’t Millie look so cute sleeping on top of this thing? She’ll love it.”

“I doubt we’d be buying this only for the cat’s enjoyment,” Armitage mutters. The toy does looks very soft, but he has no idea how they’ll bring it home with them. Even if they cleared out one of their suitcases specifically for it, the salamander is still too long to fit inside. But it does look cute, with its silly-looking embroidered smile and small legs protruding from its round shape, and Ben looks even cuter as he pets its soft exterior and looks at him pleadingly.

Armitage sighs to himself. Marriage has made him too sentimental, too soft for the outside world, he thinks once again. There was once a time when the sight of Ben’s happiness didn’t make him melt completely onto the floor.

(He’s lying to himself; Ben’s had that sort of effect on him since the day they met, as loathe as he was to admit it back then.)

“Fine,” he says, and Ben grins at him. Maybe their cat isn’t the only spoiled one in their family, because if Ben wants to bring home an excessively large toy salamander, Armitage just doesn’t have it in him to say no, especially not during their honeymoon. “But you’re carrying it on the plane if it doesn’t fit inside a suitcase, I hope you know that.”

“I’m sure there’s some things in the suitcase we won’t be bringing back with us,” Ben offers, but his gleaming eyes hint at things far less innocent than his casual words. Armitage swallows, thinking about the more delicate contents of his luggage, and how Ben’s hands will feel all over him later, tearing apart the pretty lace to get to the soft bare skin underneath as he models a new set of lingerie for him as he’s done nearly every night they’ve been here.

But they shouldn’t get distracted, not by thoughts of silk and lace, nor of strong hands, because they do have to leave the shop with their dignity intact. Armitage makes to brush past Ben and lead him to the till, but as he passes by, Ben catches his wrist, sliding his hand down until their fingers are intertwined once more. His hand is warm, and Armitage grows warmer still when Ben lifts their hands to kiss his knuckles. He can feel the curve of Ben’s smile brush against his skin, before he drops their hands again—but he doesn’t let go.

They’ll have to return to their busy city lives eventually, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing, but Armitage doesn’t need the expensive rings on their left hands or even a legal filing with the county clerk to know that Ben loves him. He only needs this: Ben’s bright smile and their intertwined fingers as they carry a stack of books, a piece of crystal, and a large salamander to the shop counter, to serve as reminders of this perfect week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The salamander itself is modeled off [the ones sold at the Kyoto Aquarium.](http://kineyahotel.kyoto.jp/image/fun2/aqua4.jpg) Ben is trying to bring home the second-to-last one in the pyramid.

**Author's Note:**

> celestialpabulum also made [a picrew post of Ben and Armitage,](https://twitter.com/sternfleck/status/1322787910802903042) which is adorable and you should all go look at it.
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/parttimewonders) and [Tumblr](https://part-timewonders.tumblr.com/) and typically don't bite.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [kelp & salt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125756) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [salt & silk](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26684566) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [ink & salt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26806291) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [snow & stone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27140747) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [winter & warmth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27923185) by [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer)
  * [snow & salt](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27932524) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [winter & sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28253157) by [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer)
  * [stars & firelight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28319388) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)
  * [moss & sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28547694) by [sternfleck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck)




End file.
